WHERE THE SUPERBOLTS ARE

Where do we see this supercharged lightning?

1 Find the superbolts

The dots on this map show superbolts between 2010 and 2018. The blue ones have an energy of more than a million joules.

2 Go extreme

There are also some super superbolts – those that have an energy in excess of 2 million joules are marked as red dots.

3 Locating the hotspots

You can clearly see where the hotspots are, with the majority in the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean Sea. There are other key spots east of Japan.

4 Sea and land

Although most of the superbolts strike over water, there is a large area of land struck by a relatively high number: the Andes Mountains in South America.